GA-SEN 2020 Class III Megathread: She Who Loeffs Last

[MT Treasurer]

I’d rate both races Tossup/Tilt R, but I’m glad he retired this year rather than 2022 when the GOP would have been forced to defend an open seat. Having a Republican incumbent who runs for reelection in 2022 should be at least somewhat conducive to Republican chances that year, although it almost certainly wouldn’t be enough to hold the seat in another Democratic wave year.

[MT Treasurer]

Maine and NC would flip before GA.

GA could absolutely flip before ME.

[MT Treasurer]

Atlas seems to have this weird obsession with GA being a safe R state and VA, IA and OH being quintessential swing states

Well, as soon as inevitable Democratic nominee Elizabeth Warren starts talking about kitchen table issues, GA/IA/VA/TX/ME will instantaneously trend back to the other party and vote like they did in 2012 (FL like 2004 tho) and everyone and their mother will be happy again.

[MT Treasurer]

Trump is clearly the favorite to win GA.

It’s nowhere near as "clear" as you and others are making it out to be. Regardless, even if he wins GA by 1-2%, that hardly guarantees a GOP victory in the special election (for obvious reasons).

[MT Treasurer]

Trump wont outperform Senate Republicans in the Sunbelt

I don’t think Martha McSally got the memo.

(Also, what Skill and Chance said.)

[MT Treasurer]

Trump wont outperform Senate Republicans in the Sunbelt

I don’t think Martha McSally got the memo.

(Also, what Skill and Chance said.)

If a presidential election had been held at the same time s the 2018 midterms Trump could easily have lost Arizona by a bigger margin than McSally.

Very unlikely, considering that his approval rating in AZ was 51/48 on election day (according to the exit polls) and McSally is polling worse than Trump in AZ right now.

There’s really no reason to believe that she’ll run ahead of Trump in 2020.

[MT Treasurer]

This race was never Likely R.

[MT Treasurer]

This race was never Likely R.

The only thing that gives me pause here is the long, long trend of Republican overperformance in runoffs/specials in GA. I think that could reverse if Trump has already won reelection and this is Dem voters' 1st chance to thumb their nose at him, but I'm not sure.  In the event Trump loses, it's hard not to see a runoff being an easy Republican win.  

Of course, if the legislature succeeds in changing this from a Louisiana primary to a normal open primary, the odds of a runoff go way down.

Honestly, I think Barrow losing the runoff by less than 4 points even while losing Cobb and underperforming badly in Gwinnett, Newton, Henry, etc. pretty much shows that this is a thing of the past.

[MT Treasurer]

The people at the NRSC also thought that Luther Strange, Martha McSally, and Patrick Morrisey were formidable candidates and that MT-SEN/OH-SEN/WV-SEN shouldn’t be prioritized because you had "strong Democratic incumbents" running for reelection there and the Republican challengers in those states were supposedly infinitely weaker than strong incumbent Heller/Rosen infinitely weaker than Tester, Manchin, and Brown.

It’s safe to say that the people at the NRSC are some of the most inept morons in the entire country. If it wasn’t for those clowns, the Senate wouldn’t even be in play in 2020 because AL/WV would have never been lost. They don’t even deserve credit for Scott picking up FL-SEN.

[MT Treasurer]

Yeah, you're unfortunately right on all of this. These people have proven to be totally inept and inefective at winning competitive races, and the worse is that the MT-SEN/WV-SEN/OH-SEN fiasco was not just a 2018 aberration, I mean it's the entire 2010 decade which was a pathetic failure, just look at all the races they fu**cked up in 2010 and 2012 and even 2014 (Gillespie would have won with more investments in VA, even if he likely would have been a single-term senator).

The sad thing is that if these very well paid people were doing their job correctly republicans would have a fairly secuure 57 seats senate majority.

Eh, I think they did pretty well in 2014 with the obvious exception of MI, which was a total disaster and should have been way more competitive. You could argue that Warner would have won by more if Republicans had decided to contest VA since Democrats would have countered with their own resources rather than being asleep at the wheel. Also, the NRSC probably would have prioritized VA over MI this year if Gillespie had won in 2014, so it would have been a pyrrhic victory.

2014 and 2016 were really the only good years for them in the Senate (in the 2010s). They underperformed expectations in 2010 and did wayyyy worse than they should have in 2018 and especially 2012.

WV, MT, and OH will probably all flip in 2024 regardless of who’s president.

Maybe WV does if Manchin retires, but MT and OH won’t be slam dunks.

[MT Treasurer]

Doug Collins will beat Kelly Loeffler in the primary. I've said this before. And if he is the nominee, Georgia will probably be close to Tossup status.

1. There will be no Republican primary here. Collins and Loeffler will both be on the November ballot, along with all other candidates.
2. This race is a Tossup even if Loeffler advances to the runoff (and you could argue that she’d be easier to beat in a runoff than Collins).

[MT Treasurer]

I’m like 99% sure this won’t be a lockout. Democrats will coalesce around one candidate, and he’ll face Collins in the runoff.

[MT Treasurer]

The NRSC is just a bunch of overpaid gop consultants having no clue at all.

If anyone knows how to piss away winnable Senate races in red states, it’s the inept morons in charge of the NRSC. You guys should appreciate their efforts, they’re doing a far better job than the DSCC.

[MT Treasurer]

Well if there was one thing Trump understands very well it is his own voters and who will vote for him.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/29/trump-virginia-elections-1243100

[MT Treasurer]

The way I see it Biden wins the state by 1-2% or so and both GA-R and GA-S go to a runoff (with Ossoff getting very close to 50%+1 in November but no cigar). If Republicans pull off an upset in one of NC/ME/MI and hold the other competitive races (big if), Senate control will then come down to the January runoff elections in Georgia, and it won’t be pretty.

[MT Treasurer]

The way I see it Biden wins the state by 1-2% or so and both GA-R and GA-S go to a runoff (with Ossoff getting very close to 50%+1 in November but no cigar). If Republicans pull off an upset in one of NC/ME/MI and hold the other competitive races (big if), Senate control will then come down to the January runoff elections in Georgia, and it won’t be pretty.

I just can't see Dems winning a runoff in Georgia if Biden has already won.  There's a scenario in there where Trump squeaks by and Republicans lose the senate due to a double runoff.

I really wouldn’t be too sure. Between Biden winning the state, the Democratic coalition consisting of more high-propensity voters than in 2008, the very limited number of persuadable voters, and a potentially disastrous transition period, all bets are off this time. The one thing that might save Loeffler (and Perdue) is if the runoff decides Senate control, but even then her (and any other Republican's) path would be very, very narrow. The state is just so close to gone for Republicans that any Republican victories in 2021/2022 would probably amount to little other than a (narrow) last hurrah. I’d be shocked if any Republican won the runoff by more than 3 points.

[MT Treasurer]

Loeffler can thank her lucky stars that this race will be nationalized like no other seat in the country because a runoff that decides control of the Senate is pretty much the only runoff she can win in modern-day GA. Even if she wins in January (which I expect her to), she’ll be very vulnerable in 2022.